A couple of times each year, an indie game will come along that dazzles players and critics alike, amassing far more sales than expected through word of mouth and, often, thanks to the much lower price tag than $70 premium games. This year, one of the standouts in this domain was ‘Dredge’. A fishing adventure within a dark, almost Lovecraftian world.
As we reported at entertainment-focus, you need to fish to survive, battle against the unfathomable, and upgrade your ship and town as you go. It’s a wonderfully straightforward game loop in a beautifully designed open world. In October, six months after launch, Black Salt Games and Team 17, the developers and publisher, announced that it had already blown past the 100,000 estimates to eclipse one million in sales.
Now, ‘Dredge’ has an expansive and very well-received new DLC, as well as a couple of major award nominations.
A timely DLC for the unique indie sensation
When ‘Dredge’ launched, the major outlets couldn’t wait to recommend it to their readers. To this day, the Metascore remains at 80, with 90 percent of reviews being positive. Two sites, gameshub.com and gamingtrend.com, even gave it a perfect 100, calling it a “masterclass in atmosphere” and “an indie horror gem.” It was a masterstroke from the developers to combine the fishing simulation angle with the ever-popular beasts of the deep.
Since ancient times, we’ve been obsessed with why lies beneath the waves. It’s why the Norse mythos dreamt up the Kraken and why Japanese tales tell of the oarfish as the harbinger of a disaster. It’s created several great pieces of entertainment across the board. Of course, Jaws is perhaps the most infamous example, followed by the freshwater-bound Lake Placid, and then there’s the novel Hacksaw Gaming online slot creation Beast Below. As is detailed by casinobonusca, slot games play a huge role in reviews, ranking second on the list, in fact. To rank highly in this regard, a site needs the best games and a creative mix of themes. So, it’s not a coincidence that Beast Below is found at the top-ranking platform, according to expert reviews. It’s this fascination with deep-sea monsters that spurs so many entertainment purchases and certainly helped to buoy Dredge’s sales.
Thanks to the incredible reception, the team was able to crack on with updates and a DLC. The Pale Reach is sitting pretty with an 83/100 Metacritic score at the time of writing – a couple of weeks after launch. It introduces new aquatic beasts to flee from, as well as a frozen environment to navigate in search of the 11 new fish and crustaceans to catch. There’s even an incredible boat upgrade that prevents your catches from spoiling!
Worthy of the awards
Following the announcements for the nominees in mid-November, aligning well with The Pale Reach DLC release, even more hype was kicked up for ‘Dredge’. For The Game Awards 2023, it was nominated for both the Best Debut Indie Game Award and the outright Best Independent Game. However, the Black Salt Games team faces some stiff competition, particularly from fellow newcomers.
Among the nominees listed for these two awards at thegameawards, ‘Dredge’ is joined by Cocoon from Geometric Interactive and Viewfinder from Sand Owl Studios. Although they’re fine games in their own right, this would have seemed to set Pizza Tower (Tour de Pizza) and Venba (Visai Games) in the dark horse category from the outset. Of the three also nominated for Best Independent Game, it was always going to be a tough call for the voters.
In the big one, Best Independent Game, the superb Sea of Stars by Sabotage Studio and Mintrocket’s creative restaurant-sim-come-diving-RPG, Dave the Diver, posed stiff competition. Dave the Diver hit one million in units sold over the summer, and Sea of Stars sold over 250,000 in its first week. As The Game Awards offer public voting, this could have given both enough of a following to rival ‘Dredge’.
Regardless, it’s been a superb year for indie games and Black Salt Games in particular. With a hit game and well-received DLC, they’ve certainly created a strong fan base for their next project.
